Week Beginning 20 February 2017

MESSAGES

The Annual Parent Satisfaction Survey - Your feedback is essential in creating the best learning environment for your child. We encourage you take the time to fill out the 15-minute survey. Your responses will inform us on how we can improve your child’s overall learning experience. You can access the survey here. The last day to respond will be Monday 20 February 2017. Thank you again for your continued support and feedback. We look forward to hearing your responses.

Please note that there will be no ECAs on Tuesday 21 or Thursday 23 February due to Parent Teacher Conferences. BISCAP and Swimming will not be affected.

Raincoat and Cold Weather- Please ensure that your child brings a raincoat to school for the wet weather and a coat now that the tempature has dropped.

Swimming - Please be aware that the days are getting colder and wetter so please dress your child accordingly. On swimming days girls may wear dark leggings and matching dark socks instead of tights to make it easier for them to get dressed. A warm hat is also recommended.

LITERACY

This week we are continuing to focus on the development of understanding non-fiction texts; in particular information texts. The children will be identifying language and features that are found throughout this genre. They will then be using this knowledge to help them construct their own information text.

KEY VOCABULARY

PHONICS

Sharks

Over the next few weeks the Sharks will be focusing on the phonic sounds; wh, ph, ew. We will be practising reading and spelling the words with adjacent constants, and words with newly formed graphemes. High frequency words will continue to run across the next few weeks as ever, including; Mr, Mrs, don’t, by, some and come.

Puffer Fish

This week the Puffer Fish group will be continuing to focus on learning how to read and spell some of the tricky words. They will be focusing on mum, dad, back, into, go and put.

Starfish

This week Starfish will be learning alternative pronunciations for ‘y’ . The children will practise reading and spelling polysyllabic words such as: reply, spying, crunchy, funny, mystery, crystal. The children will also learn to red and spell the tricky words: any, eyes, friends, once and please. Some children will continue to develop their proof reading skills by looking for spelling errors.

Stingrays

This week Stingrays will continue learning new digraphs within phase 3. We will be looking at ee, igh and oa. We will be applying these sounds to help sound out and spell new words such as light, goat and tree whilst continuing to practice and identify our vowel sounds (a,e,i,o and u). We will also be learning how to spell tricky words such as was, all, they and my.

Jellyfish

This week the Jellyfish phonics group will continue to work through Phase 4 where they will practise the recognition and recall of Phase 2 and 3 graphemes. They will learn and practise the reading and spelling of ccvcc words using these sounds e.g. trust, spend, glint, tramp, grunt, crept, crunch, drench, shrink etc. Children will also be taught how to read the tricky words were, there, little and one, and how to spell the tricky words they, all, are and children.

Octopus

This week the Octopus phonics group will review all Phase3 sounds. They will practise reading and writing words featuring these sounds, paying particular attention to the consonant clusters and vowel digraphs. They will also practise reading high frequency words.

MATHS

This week during Maths lessons we will be learning how to tell the time to the hour and half past the hour. We will be practising moving the big and little hands and will be drawing our own hands onto different clocks. We will also begin to estimate and measure time using sand timers and stop watches.

KEY VOCABULARY

Time, clock, watch, hour, minute, second, hands, timer, half past

THEMED LEARNING

For themed learning this week, we will be beginning a new science topic called ‘Everyday Materials’. We will be exploring which materials different objects are made from. The children will then be looking closely at these to attempt to sort and classify these items and describe using our 5 senses what we explored in our previous Science unit. By the end of the week we want to be able to suggest different materials for different purposes and explain our choices.

KEY VOCABULARY

COMPUTER PROGRAMMING AND DIGITAL LITERACY

Over the coming weeks our coding lessons continue to focus on having an increased number of moveable objects, each with specific directions linked to the pressing of keys or swiping of the screen. As we start to enter our literacy focus of traditional tales the children will create apps based on the fairy tale theme.